THE CRAFTSMAN: LEON BREITLING AND THE SPECIALIZED TIMEKEEPER

Leon grew up in the cradle of watchmaking, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. His grandfather Jacob-Martin, a baker-taverner, had settled his family in the town a generation before. Leon’s uncle Charles-Auguste became a watchmaker in his own right who established his company, Breitling-Laederich in 1850.

La Chaux-de-Fonds is recognized today as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its design as a “city-factory” focused on the fabrication and assembly of watches. Watchmaking started out there as a cottage industry, with most of the trades—case makers, dial makers— taking place in home workshops throughout the town. Residential and semiindustrial workshops shared space in buildings that were organized in parallel strips positioned to ensure enough natural light came through the large atelier windows to illuminate the work benches for the maximum number of daylight hours. Growing up in these surroundings had a profound influence on Leon. From a very young age, he knew watchmaking would be his calling.

By the time Leon finished his formal studies, those cottage businesses had developed into a full-fledged industrial sector. Leon left La Chaux-de-Fonds to take an apprenticeship with a chronograph specialist in the nearby town of Renan.

In 1884, he was ready to set up his own shop, which he established in nearby SaintImier, another of the watchmaking towns that dotted the lush valleys of the Swiss Jura Mountains. Leon was independent, but regularly collaborated with other relevant companies in the area—Droz, Perret, Favre and Fallet are all mentioned in the Breitling family archives.

His interest from the get-go was the chronograph; it fascinated him. If he grew up in the epicenter of watchmaking at a time when the most relevant complication was the chronograph, it’s quite logical that he caught the bug. There was a lot of innovation going on, and Leon was keen to be a part of it.

After all, he lived in exciting times. The late 19th century was the peak of the Industrial Revolution and owning a chronograph was becoming more essential in all walks of life. Sporting activities ventured beyond the horse racetracks of the rich. Leon witnessed the first cycling races, the first motor races. He saw trains moving at unprecedented speeds, and industry was setting the pace.

It was the era of Taylorism, a scientific management theory where every step of industrial manufacturing and assembly was timed in order to optimize output. An entirely new, modern way of life was emerging, just waiting to be lived—and timed. Leon saw this new world of speed as an opportunity to share his passion for the chronograph with a wider audience. He was quick to register his innovations with the newly formed Swiss Institut Fédéral de la Propriété Intellectuelle, beginning with the 1889 patent #927, for a simplified chronograph timer with a single wheel and normal toothing. It was one of many to follow that would improve and streamline the chronograph, making it easier and less time consuming to manufacture—a step towards the goal of making it more affordable to the masses. A year later, Leon was officially listed in the 1890 Indicateur Davoine ,

THIS PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Leon Breitling’s first documented advertisement (1891) and his first listing in the Indicateur Davoine (1890), a registry naming all Swiss watchmakers and traders a registry naming all Swiss watchmakers and traders. His listing reads: “Breitling, Léon, specialité de chronographe, breveté”—a specialist in chronographs, with his own patents. The occasion inspired him to create a logo for the company with a motif that would immediately identify that “specialité.” It was a depiction of a column wheel, the central component of the chronograph, together with his initials, L and B.

In 1892, with his new logo and credentials in hand, Leon returned to his hometown of La Chaux-de Fonds, ready to compete in the watchmaking big leagues. He rented a rather large factory on Rue du Petit Château, in a building shared with another big chronograph company of the period, Couleri-Meri.

He announced his “homecoming” with a full-page advertisement in the Indicateur

LEFT: The 1892 registration for Leon Breitling’s “column-wheel” logo with initials LB

RIGHT: Early Breitling horse-racing stopwatch (1892)

ABOVE:

Registrations for Breitling’s cycle and horse logos (1896) and the name of his horse-racing stopwatch, “The Longchamps” (1906)

RIGHT:

A 1903 advertisement for Breitling’s horseracing stopwatch

Davoine, placed on page two and printed on colored paper, undoubtedly a major expense for the young watchmaker. In the ad, Leon boasted of his patented simplified chronograph movement, showed a chronographe rattrapante and his horse-racing stopwatch (a design he registered in 1896 and named “The Longchamps” in 1906).

Two years later, to Leon’s delight, a large public park was created adjacent to the Breitling factory, and the street was renamed Rue de Montbrillant. Leon loved the name, and soon changed his advertisements to proudly note that his factory was located at 3 Montbrillant. In 1899, he even changed the company name to “L. Breitling, Montbrillant Watch Manufactory” and registered the logo.

Leon raced into the 20th century in a burst of productivity. Sometime around 1910, he placed an advertisement in the journal of the Fédération Horlogère Suisse, proudly stating that Breitling had sold “more than 100,000 chronographs and stopwatches” since its founding in 1884.

He also registered names for his various specialties. Among them, the 1907 “Vitesse,” a piece that nicely summarized what his work and research had all been about: measuring speed. The Vitesse was a complex and innovative chronograph with a tachymeter scale that could measure and display speeds from 15 to 250 miles or kilometers per hour. We have this innovation to thank for the first speeding tickets.

Speed remained the driving force behind Leon Breitling’s pursuit of the perfect chronograph, and it was a word that applied equally to his aptitude for marketing. He registered logos for watches relating to horse racing, cycling, motor racing and any relevant sport and activity he could think of, something not widely done in that era. He advertised “compteurs de sport,” stopwatches, chronographs and, from the early 1890s, rattrapantes or split-second chronographs. Breitling also produced specialized tachymeters, phonotelemeters (for timing sound), medical pulsometers (for measuring heart rates), industrial timers and “all automotive specialities,” as stated in a 1910 advertisement. These early endeavors, based on the measurement of speed, went a long way towards establishing Breitling’s tool-watch DNA.

THIS PAGE: 1910 advertisement referring to Breitling’s tachymeters, phonotelemeters and “all automotive specialities”

OPPOSITE:

1895 ad for the company’s various sports timekeepers